Wherever I go, I hear the same question: “Is China still a Communist country?”
My reply is always the same: “China is one of the oldest and greatest cultures on earth, and its leadership says that it is ‘a socialist country with Chinese characteristics’. And when China says something, it should be taken seriously; the world should be listening.”
Weinberg’s polemics on positivism are to be found in a chapter of his Dreams of a Final Theory characteristically entitled “Against philosophy”. He polemicizes there against philosophy in general, making some negative judgments on eminent thinkers of the era of bourgeois progress and on Marxism. His observations are one-sided, to say the least, but deserve attention as being representative of weaknesses shared by many leading physicists, such as their inadequate acquaintance with philosophy, which prevent them from assimilating progressive thought and Marxism.
We should go to the masses and learn from them, synthesize their experience into better, articulated principles and methods, then do propaganda among the masses, and call upon them to put these principles and methods into practice so as to solve their problems and help them achieve liberation and happiness.
— Mao Zedong1 (p. 106)
Ahh, little things count – you know, when those big bad ass union bosses pulling in $150K a year or more, yammer on about $15 an hour minimum wage, but, err, not for unions:
The recent celebration of two hundred years of Gurkha recruitment into the British Army in London, at the Royal Chelsea Hospital on the 11th of June, attended by the Queen and various dignitaries and celebrities, was not really a cause of celebration. In fact, it is disgraceful and a should be a source of shame for the British, the Nepalese, the Indians, and any country that has ever been invaded by the British Army and was ever part of the British Empire. Its time to call for an end to this outdated colonial practice.
Greece is white, it is European, and therefore the eyes of the entire Western “progressive” world are now directed towards Athens: will its government dare to default, would Greece leave the euro-zone and eventually the European Union? As if the answer to this question could change the world; as if Athens is where the fate of humanity will be decided.
I have been amazed by the rosy images so many Chinese youth hold of the West. Chinese Communist Party (CPC) officials are faced with an unenviable task. The CPC needs to provide jobs and a decent standard of living for the Chinese people, and these goals can come in conflict. The CPC has delivered in terms of improving the economy and pulling hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty. However, the environment has suffered as a consequence. The CPC does not hide this fact (it is after all pretty hard to hide air pollution and water pollution) and publishes regular air quality reports.
I see my old friends, Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel, are still flogging their dead horse of a Holy Roman-Leninist Empire in their latest DV article, “The Future of Solidarity.”
My previous DV article, “No Marx Again,” criticised them for pushing the notion of a ‘Leninist Socialist State’; where workers who supposedly ‘owned the means of production’ could ‘go on strike’ presumably against themselves for better pay and conditions!
The future of solidarity in Catholic social teaching provides the basis for a human rights policy that grants priority to the claims of people whose human dignity is threatened by systemic and structural injustice. This development has been supported by the inclusion of Marxist analysis. In a world that is constantly assuming new organizational institutions, the rights and dignities of persons are still at risk. Consequently, solidarity in both Catholic and Marxist notions prioritize institutional protection and human rights. David Hollenbach, S.J. states:
I note with some disappointment but no real surprise that Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel, the authors of “Revisiting Marx and Liberalism” have not responded to my article, “No Marx!” which challenged their contention that for Marx, Socialism was the first stage of Communism.
